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“[SKIRMISH MODE] IS THE MAIN THING THAT’S distinguished our games from everyone else’s,” says Shelley—and he’s right. Age of Empires was the first real-time strategy game to give players the opportunity to compete against the computer A.I. on randomly generated maps, essentially mimicking the structure of a multiplayer game. Even today, the challenges inherent in making random maps that the A.I. can play on intelligently—and that players feel are fair—are just too great for most companies.

Blizzard, for example, never includes random maps; everything in WarCraft is always hand painted. Shelley explains the difference this way: “[Blizzard] is building chess games [in WarCraft and StarCraft] for competition. One guy at Blizzard said we wouldn’t believe the amount of e-mail they get from competitive players saying stuff like, ‘If you would just move that item two pixels south it’d balance the map.’ We’re building a poker game, where every hand, you don’t know what you’ve got until you pull up your cards.”

AOE3’s big, new skirmish mode feature is the inclusion of eight computer-player personas, one for each civilization—Napoleon for France, Queen Isabella for Spain, and so on (see page 51). Every A.I. opponent will have different strategies, motivations, and personalities.

“We wanted to beef up the feeling that you’re playing against a persona, not a bunch of bits calculating the most optimal way to attack you,” says Street.

One way they’ll do this is with audio taunts—there are about 4,000 at this point—that will chime in at key moments in recognition of what’s happening in the game. Age of Mythology included text taunts from the A.I., but with AOE3’s multiple audible personalities, it’s much more amped up this time around.

“A really cool thing is for the A.I. to tell you what to do,” says Pottinger. “Let’s say that as Napoleon is marching across the map, he says, ‘I’m on my way to kick your ass.’ That’s cool. Why? It creates a time line and some tension, because you know that in a couple minutes, this big Napoleonic army is coming to your town. That’s a lot more fun than just having 40 cuirassiers show up.”